Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1887-06-28
TELE R RlC.
THE GOULD AND CURRY FIRE.
E;-.s. a. Serious Is tie Ys-:v Jacket
Fire Is yssrz A..
SEVERAL O? TIE POOH FELLOWS
DEAD.
Particulars Of the Terrible
Calamity.
KIRE IN TIE CoMsTOCK.
The Gould and Curry works
Burning Several liners Dead
and the Fate Of Others Unknewn.

Burning seveFal Miners Dead
and the Fate of Others Unknewn.
VIRGISn, June Z.-At Z O'Clock
last night the engineer at the Bonner
shaft Of the Gould & Curry mine dis
covered smoke issuing from the shaft.
Suspecting an underground fire he at
once sounded an alarm. Almost in
stantly a crowd collected in the neigh
borhood, and within five minutes the
streets were filed with people hurry
ing toward what proved to be the
scene of an awful disaster, the most
| serious since the Yellow jacket fire IS
years ago. Men and women whose
brothers and husbands were employed
in the Curry gathered around the
hosting work only to be confronted
by an impossible barrier Of smoke and
gas.
Brave men, who feared no danger,
and who would have willingly risked
| their lives on behalf of their i'm
p~risoned fellows, were helpless in a.
building where the smoke was so.
dense that s~uffocation was a matter OF
only few moments. 1t was a repeti-
ton OF the great Jacket fire, only on
a lesser scale. Every means available
were at once adopted after the discov-
cry of the fire. The compressors
we're run at full speed, and all the air
run through the blowers that they
could possible carry. The hosting
works nevertheless, were like a smoke
house. The lamps could scarcely be
seen, and the combined smell of the
steam, gas and exhaled air from below
was nauseating. The engineer was
compelled to mufie his nostrils and
mouth with a wet handkerchief. On
the 400 level Joncy Morgan, John
Traunce, Bob Bruce, George Carpen-
ter and Andy Bean were working. 1t
is not known what warning they
might have had Of the impending
calamity but it is evident that they
made a strong effort to escape their
doom. They climbed a Wine over
100 feet to the old Gould & Curry
drain tunnel, now belonging to the
Water Company, the mouth or outlet
of which is several hundred yards east
of town. The parties who went to
their rescue through this tunnel were
driven back by the dense smoke but
finally succeeded in finding Morgan
and Bean lying neal each other. Nor
gan was within so feet of the door and
600 feet from the mouth of the tunnel,
which would have saved him could he
have reached it. The names of the
six miners on the 1900 level are Ed
Jeffrey. John Kennedy, Martin Ire
gals, Peter Eddy, Charles Doherty
and Foster Hamilton. Everything is
being done toward their possible
rescue and the intervening space OF
rock and vein matter are being torn
out as fast as picks, drills and powder
can effect it. The best miners ale be-
ing employed on ten minute shifts.
Meanwhile the ponderous and
powderful air compressor or blower
is being worked to its full capacity at
the rate of go strokes a minute-twice
the ordinary speed. All fear of the
air pipe being melted off bv the fire in
the depths is obviated by the fact of.
the five or six inches of water used by
the compressor flowing down the pipe
itself. Mr.. Patten had just returned
from underground, and from him the
reporter gained the following:
PARTICULARS OF THE FIRE.
At 7:15 last evening Superintendent
Lyman telegraphed to me that his
shaft was on fire and that the men
were in the 1900 foot drift asking for
help. Knowing that the only CON
nection between the two mines at that
level was through the Sutro tunnel. |
from thence through a drift running
westerly to the bottom of an incline |
about 200 feet from the 1900 station
of the Gould & Curry shaft. l i'm
mediately went to that point and
found that the 1900 station of the
Gould & Curry shaft was a mass oil
flames. That located the fire. Now
seeing that there was no possible es-
cape for the men in that direction, III
Immediately commenced putting in
bulkheads with a view of smothering
as much as possible of the fire by
shutting off the supply of air and per-
hitting their escape in some other
direction. l Immediately returned to
the surface and communicated what |
had learned to Superintendent Lyman
of the Curry. He informed me that
they were still forcing air down the
air shaft but were unable to send men
down to rescue the imprisoned
miners. 1t seems that the Curry
1900 north drift, in which these men
80 oon6pad had hoon rim ~ the Con